1. Field of the Present Invention
The present invention generally relates to air flow management within an electronic equipment enclosure, and in particular to a magnetic filler panel for use in an airflow control system in such an enclosure.
2. Background
Racks, frames, cabinets and the like for supporting computer and other electronic equipment are well known. Such support apparatus are often partially or fully enclosed, either directly through the use of doors and panels mounted directly thereon, or indirectly by lining several such apparatuses up in a row such that the sides of each rack are immediately adjacent another rack.
As is also well known, the electronic equipment mounted therein tends to generate large amounts of heat that need to be exhausted away from the equipment effectively in order to maintain the equipment in proper operating order or to prevent damage thereto. As equipment has become more densely packed with electronics, the quantities of heat have continued to increase in recent years. Heat management has thus become a significant issue confronting today's rack, cabinet, frame and enclosure manufacturers, the manufacturers of the electronic equipment, and the users of such equipment.
Each piece of equipment is often enclosed within an individual chassis or housing that includes a location, typically referred to as an exhaust grille, where air that has been circulated therethrough is exhausted. The heated air is frequently forced or forcibly drawn out of the various active pieces of equipment through exhaust grilles of the equipment by internal fans, often supplemented by separate fans mounted in or on the enclosure. In many pieces of equipment, the exhaust grille is located on the rear of the equipment, and the equipment is often cooled by bringing cool air to the front of the equipment and exhausted through the rear, often through a door or through exhaust openings in a panel. Other equipment uses the opposite configuration, wherein cool air is brought to the rear of the equipment and exhausted through the front; this may be handled generally similarly as the rear exhaust except that the front and rear of the cabinet are generally reversed. Still other equipment is arranged to receive cold air from the side and to exhaust heated air from the opposite side. For example, a common piece of electronic equipment in modern computer networks is a switch. Switches tend to generate a significant amount of heat, and therefore are of particular concern in exhausting heat from an electronic equipment enclosure, and at least some are manufactured with inlets on one side and exhaust grilles on the other side. Such equipment requires different treatment than front/rear exhaust equipment.
In order to control the flow of air within an electronic equipment enclosure, various ducts, risers, manifolds and other structures may be utilized to route air and prevent heated exhaust air from mixing with cooled intake air. One particular structure utilized in this effort is a blanking panel or filler panel which may be installed to prevent both cool air from seeping into the cabinet and exhaust air from re-circulating back from the rear of the cabinet to the front causing a mixing of warm and cool air. For example, FIG. 1 is an isometric view of a prior art filler panel for use in an electronic equipment enclosure system. Conventional filler panels are substantially planar in construction, are made from metal, plastics and plastic sheet material, and include mounting apertures at their ends. At least some panels are a whole number of standard rack mounting units (RMUs) in height and are wide or long enough to be mounted to the front of the vertical frame members or other structural members of an electronic equipment enclosure system using fasteners routed through corresponding apertures therein.
Unfortunately, the creation of the apertures is expensive, and the panels must be fastened to vertical mounting rails or other members with screws and/or cage nuts, which can be quite time-consuming when deploying thousands of filler panels within a typical Data Center environment. A partial solution to the latter problem was to manufacture the filler panels with a tool-less captive fastener, but although simplifying installation somewhat, the manufacturing cost is still greater and every different panel size had to be appropriately tooled.
Furthermore, the apertures allow small amounts of air to leak past the filler panel. Even worse, the use of fasteners to attach the ends of the filler panels to the vertical members has a tendency to create a close, nearly-sealed fit around the points of attachment but allowing, and even causing, gaps to form elsewhere between the ends of the filler panels and the vertical members.
Thus, a need exists for an inexpensive panel that is easy to install and provides a tight seal between the ends thereof and the vertical members to which it is mounted.